(September 20, 2008) The Catholic Church in Kerala says it opposes a government move
to amend nation’s abortion law in order to increase the permissible length of terminable
pregnancy up to 24 week. Central health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss last week announced
plans to amend the existing national law Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 1971.
It currently allows termination pregnancy only up to 20 weeks. The Church opposes
the move saying increasing the limit would encourage more abortions, but some doctors
and feminists laud on medical and pro-choice grounds. "Increasing the terminable
pregnancy period will only help further misuse of the legal provision of abortion,"
said Father Jose Kottayil, president of the Pro-Life Ministry of Kerala Catholic Bishops
Council's Family Mission. “The Church is totally against abortion, legal or illegal,
as it is a murder. The Church believed that a new life was born when a human egg and
sperm fertilized and hence abortion was against humanity and human dignity,” he said.
The move apparently stemmed from a lost legal battle waged by Mumbai schoolteacher
Niketa Mehta, whose plea to get her 25-week-old foetus which had a congenital heart
problem aborted was rejected by the Bombay High Court based on the law. "You have
no right to sniff out another life right in the womb just to suit your convenience,"
Father Kottayil said adding that no the Church-run hospitals would conduct an abortion.
“If a mother could not raise her child, she could gift the child to a childless couple
for adoption,” he suggested.